The doubleheader for the Dakota Classic Modified Tour that was scheduled to happen at the Estevan Motor Speedway next month has been cancelled, thanks to the ongoing closure of the Canada-U.S. border to non-essential traffic.
The announcement was made by tour organizers on June 10.
Estevan was slated to host the first two nights of the tour on July 11 and 12. While the track has held tour doubleheaders previously, they haven’t hosted a doubleheader on a weekend.
In a post on their Facebook page, the speedway said they are grateful for the opportunity to have the double-header this year. They are also sad the local drivers won’t be joining the tour and competing for tour glory, “as they are well capable of doing.”
“There’s a handful of them that have been super, super competitive, and really have done a great job on that tour,” said Estevan Motor Speedway president Byron Fichter. “I think we had some candidates as possible guys to win races or even have an outside chance of winning the championship, and it’s just heartbreaking they can’t participate in that.”
Even if the border restrictions weren’t in place, it would have been impossible to run the doubleheader with current crowd restrictions. The tour’s purse is about $20,000 per night, and the speedway couldn’t have those races without fans in the seats.
“If the border was open but we weren’t allowed to have a grandstand, that’s even more heartbreaking,” said Ficther. “You know that you’re available, but you still can’t make it work because you can’t have a grandstand. It’s a really sad day for the race fans of Estevan.”
Prior to COVID-19’s arrival in Saskatchewan in March, plans for the doubleheader weekend were progressing well. Fichter predicted this would have been the biggest event at the speedway since the current track opened in 2000.
They were going to bring in a band for live entertainment on Saturday night, and a scramble golf tournament and an afternoon shopping excursion were planned for Sunday.
“They could go downtown and experience downtown Estevan, do some shopping, hit up some sidewalk cafés downtown and see what the culinary picture of Estevan looks like,” said Fichter.
Not only did they want to showcase the speedway to drivers from numerous U.S. states, but they wanted people to see what Estevan has to offer.
“It was on such a broad scope of something we’ve never done before, and it makes it even that much more heartbreaking that we don’t get to race,” said Fichter.
The speedway wishes the tour organizers the best of luck with next month’s races.
Fichter said in order to be fair to other tracks, they need about a month to promote their tour stops, so a decision had to be made now, and they couldn’t wait for a decision to be announced on whether the Canada-U.S. border would reopen.
“There wasn’t really any discussion. We just all know that there was no real option for us at this point.”
A press release for the tour said organizers have been working on a Plan B for several weeks in case Estevan could not race. The tour will now start at Red River Valley Speedway in West Fargo, N.D., on July 10.
The program on July 11 will be at Jamestown Speedway and the third race will be at Nodak Speedway in Minot the next night. Nodak was not going to be on the tour this year because of a scheduling conflict with the North Dakota State Fair, but the fair was cancelled so Minot is now able to host a race.
The tour features six races in six days with modifieds and stock cars racing each night.
Fichter noted there won’t be much for crowd restrictions in North Dakota during the tour. He knows that the recommendation in Minot was to not have their grandstand at more than 50 per cent capacity, but their grandstand is 7,000 spectators.
The Estevan Motor Speedway will be back on the tour in 2021.
